Horsing around a truly odd world with 'Vampires in the Lemon Grove'

11:55 AM,
Apr. 19, 2013

Written by

Helen Bungert
| For NJ Press Media

Rutherford B. Hayes is a horse - "a skewbald pinto with a golden cowlick and a cross-eyed stare," to be exact. This is not a horse named Rutherford B. Hayes; this is the president himself, stabled with 10 other used-to-be presidents, surrounded by a Fence they can't jump. And this is not the strangest scene in Karen Russell's new book of short stories, "Vampires in the Lemon Grove." In addition to the titular vampires and their taste for lemons, there also are girls turning into silkworms, a scarecrow that evokes a bullied classmate, and a rulebook on how to tailgate in Antarctica during the Food ...